Before we begin, one thing worth holding onto: the Passovers are our touchpoint. Passover is one of the three pilgrimage feasts every able, faithful Jewish man was commanded to attend — which is why it makes such a good marker as we explore Jesus’ three years of ministry. In the Gospel record He celebrates three Passovers, and they mark out those three years. He was crucified at the last one. This part covers the stretch from His baptism to the first of them.

The baptism

John announces Him — the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world — and Jesus comes to the Jordan to be baptized.

Why the Jordan? Because of what that river had always meant. It was the entry to the land of promise, the water Israel crossed to come into what God had sworn to give them. And here, at that same water, all three Persons of the Trinity are present at once: the Son in the water, the Spirit descending, the Father speaking from heaven.

Notice what is being declared here. This is not first of all about a private, personal transaction. It is the announcement that God is setting to right everything that has been disordered.

Matthew 3:11–17 · Mark 1:7–11 · Luke 3:16–23

Forty days in the wilderness

Then He is driven into the wilderness for forty days — a month and a half of confronting the alternatives to His calling. The political alternative. The religious alternative. And finally the offer to simply take it all from Satan’s hand, which is exactly the offer the first Adam accepted.

The forty days are not incidental. Israel came to the edge of the land at Kadesh Barnea and chose not to enter, and wandered forty years. Here Jesus takes His stand where the nation fell, identifying Himself with them and succeeding where they failed.

Afterward angels come and minister to Him, and Satan withdraws — Luke says only until “a more opportune time.”

Matthew 4:1–11 · Mark 1:12–13 · Luke 4:1–13

Cana, and the first sign

He travels back north to Galilee and attends a wedding at Cana, where He turns water into wine — the first of the signs John records. Then a short visit to Capernaum.

Put yourself in the moment: there had been the miraculous births of both John and Jesus, then John’s public announcement, and now miracles. His reputation begins to spread.

John 1:29–2:12

The first Passover

Three or four months after John’s announcement, He travels south to Jerusalem for Passover — and makes a furious scene in the temple, driving out those who had made His Father’s house a marketplace. There is a new young Rabbi on the scene, and everyone knows it.

He speaks with Nicodemus by night, and afterward His disciples are baptizing in Judea.

John 2:13–3:21 · John 3:23–36

Baptized → tempted forty days → the wedding at Cana → and then to the first Passover. Compared with what is coming, this first year is still relatively quiet.